Bainbridge Performing Arts Sets 2015-16 Season: LOVE LETTERS, HAIR & More

Bainbridge Performing Arts (BPA) has been entertaining Bainbridge Island and beyond for nearly six decades and is thrilled to announce its 59thAnniversary Season! Since 1956, BPA has served as the artistic heart of Bainbridge Island and is a community theater in the very best sense of the phrase. The talented and creative collaborations of actors, musicians, singers, writers, poets, dancers, and designers produce spectacular sights and sounds that fill the stage each month with deliciously captivating musicals, riveting plays, beautifully crafted music performances from the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Music Series, uplifting comedy from The EDGE Improv, an innovative and character-building Theatre School program for Pre-K through adults, and so much more.

BPA's mission to promote appreciation of and participation in the performing arts to build, educate, and inspire our vibrant, creative community is manifest in the 2015-2016 Season. A sizzling Theatre Season begins October 8 - 25 with the iconic musical HAIR. The wildly popular MARY POPPINS offers fun for the whole family December 3 - 20. A.R. Gurney's LOVE LETTERS was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Running February 4 - 14, it serves up a banquet of love. Peter Shaffer's award-winning AMADEUS runs March 10 -27. Our fifth Mainstage production is a new family classic, to be announced (rights pending), and runs May 12 - 29. The BPA Shakespeare Society returns with another fantastic outdoor performance in July 2016.

Join the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra (BSO) for its 42nd Anniversary Season and help celebrate the orchestra's flourishing vitality and contribution to the arts on Bainbridge Island. Performances for the BSO's 2015-2016 four-concert season are November 14 & 15, February 20 & 21, April 16 & 17, and June 3 & 5. With the exception of the final concert, all performances are Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. The June concerts are Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. to accommodate the first-Saturday return of The EDGE on June 4.

On the heels of their 20th anniversary season, The EDGE Improv kicks off an all new decade of laughs, with performances September 5, October 3, November 7, December 5, January 2, February 6, March 5, April 2, May 7, June 4, July 2, and August 6.

This season's One Acts, produced by Tom Challinor and Swinging Hammer Productions run January 22 - 24, and feature "All in the Timing." According toTime Magazine, this collection of one-act plays by David Ives is "Theatre that aerobicizes the brain and tickles the heart."

BPA's rich tradition of engaging the community and touching the hearts of actors and musicians as well as audience and community members is beautifully captured by author David Guterson's comments about BPA's 2015 production of his work, Snow Falling on Cedars: "The play spilled out of the theater and into the lobby, and from there into schools and public forums. It kept something alive in our community that is always in danger of fading. It was truly for the sake of the children. It passes the torch to a new generation of islanders. Art, history, and the social good all merged in that theater."

BPA's Season Subscriptions are now on sale at the BPA Box Office at 206.842.8569. Individual tickets may soon be purchased online atwww.bainbridgeperformingarts.org, by phone at 206.842.8569 or in person at BPA, 200 Madison Avenue North, Bainbridge Island. BPA Box Office hours are 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and one hour prior to each performance. Through the Open Doors program, free and reduced cost tickets are always available to those in need. Please inquire at the BPA Box Office or Helpline House for more information.

BPA is supported, in part, by Bainbridge Community Foundation and One Call for All.